A valuable resource for any student majoring in the health sciences, Dr. Grilly's text examines human drug use from historical, societal, and biological perspectives.

This scholarly overview provides a rich foundation for understanding drugs and their usage. In addition to describing basic pharmacological principles, Grilly discusses the general factors behind and approaches for dealing with drug tolerance, dependence, and abuse. By using the most up-to-date research, and by presenting data in concise, jargon-free prose, the author has created one of the most comprehensive and accessible books on the subject.

Information is organized from the general to the specific, beginning with a historical perspective and subsequently moving through drug classifications, approaches to drug tolerance, dependence and abuse, psychological and behavioral effects, pharmacokinetics, mechanisms of action, common side effects, and current issues regarding drugs and their uses.

Features:

Contains concise coverage of the most important aspects of a broad range of drugs that humans use to alter mood, mental functions, and behavior.

Organizes issues relevant to all psychoactive drugs, allowing students to use the deductive approach in the learning process. For example, after covering the first six chapters, the instructor can ask why some drugs with the same mechanism of action have different degrees of abuse potential or liability, or difference degrees and duration of withdrawal symptoms.

Discusses not only a variety of mechanisms behind drug tolerance, dependence, and abuse phenomena, but links them together and also provides a number of approaches for prevention and reduction of their consequences.

New To This Edition:

A list of relevant websites has been added to the end of each chapter.

Updates and expands coverage of all topics in every chapter.

Describes new drug treatments and current trends in abuse and dependence.

A valuable resource for any student majoring in the health sciences, Dr. Grilly's text examines human drug use from historical, societal, and biological perspectives.

This scholarly overview provides a rich foundation for understanding drugs and their usage. In addition to describing basic pharmacological principles, Grilly discusses the general factors behind and approaches for dealing with drug tolerance, dependence, and abuse. By using the most up-to-date research, and by presenting data in concise, jargon-free prose, the author has created one of the most comprehensive and accessible books on the subject.

Information is organized from the general to the specific, beginning with a historical perspective and subsequently moving through drug classifications, approaches to drug tolerance, dependence and abuse, psychological and behavioral effects, pharmacokinetics, mechanisms of action, common side effects, and current issues regarding drugs and their uses.

Features:

Contains concise coverage of the most important aspects of a broad range of drugs that humans use to alter mood, mental functions, and behavior.

Organizes issues relevant to all psychoactive drugs, allowing students to use the deductive approach in the learning process. For example, after covering the first six chapters, the instructor can ask why some drugs with the same mechanism of action have different degrees of abuse potential or liability, or difference degrees and duration of withdrawal symptoms.

Discusses not only a variety of mechanisms behind drug tolerance, dependence, and abuse phenomena, but links them together and also provides a number of approaches for prevention and reduction of their consequences.

New To This Edition:

A list of relevant websites has been added to the end of each chapter.

Updates and expands coverage of all topics in every chapter.

Describes new drug treatments and current trends in abuse and dependence.